


Almost Glad To Be Alone, Until Love Came In

by callaina



Category: Naruto
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, M/M, Umino Iruka Needs a Hug, late aftermath of the shuriken-incident, they're stupid and awkward and in LOVE love, trauma talk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-08
Updated: 2020-04-08
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:27:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23548393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callaina/pseuds/callaina
Summary: Naruto gave him a look before going back to drawing shapes into the dirt. Kakashi realized he was sketching a crude version of Team 7. “I know you have your special eye, Kakashi-sensei, but sometimes you can be really blind.”Kakashi didn’t have an answer to that.
Relationships: Hatake Kakashi/Umino Iruka
Comments: 27
Kudos: 334





	Almost Glad To Be Alone, Until Love Came In

**Author's Note:**

> title from [Loving Is Easy](https://open.spotify.com/track/5EYi2rH4LYs6M21ZLOyQTx?si=_wWxOza-TH2Vhiwkonn5rA) by Rex Orange County

Kakashi wasn’t a person who could easily be made to stumble. It wasn’t so much a fact as it was a decision. One that Kakashi had made at approximately age four when he had tripped over Pakkun’s dozing form and knocked out a front tooth. So, no stumbling for Hatake Kakashi, not anymore.

And yet there were several witnesses who begged to differ.

His genin team, for example, that had seen him lose his focus because of Naruto’s yelling and that boy had _lungs,_ and as a result go from sure-footed team leader standing on a river’s surface to a completely drenched mess in seconds. Or, probably not a surprise to anyone, Gai, who had carried him far too often for Kakashi’s liking; Gai, who had been there for so long that sometimes Kakashi thought his best friend knew him better than he knew himself. There were also one or two, or, okay, ten teammates, both from ANBU and general missions, who had watched Kakashi pass out into a boneless heap from chakra exhaustion. But did that really count, though?

Kakashi stood by his point. It wasn’t easy to make him stumble, neither in his step or his words. When he was given an order, he persecuted it. On the rare occasion that he wanted something for himself, he pursued it. When he was unsure of what to say, Kakashi either kept quiet and observed, or waited till the insecurity passed like a cloud in the sky, or till another sleepless night came and he was free to ruminate some more.

Kakashi hadn't stumbled much all through his twenty-six-year-old existence. And then he met Umino Iruka.

Apparently, all it took for Kakashi was one of Iruka’s unabashed, vibrant smiles, reaching his pair of brown eyes and making them light up. Kakashi gaped back at the sensei and had all his ardously assembled composure fall apart. He watched it crumble to the ground. Even when Iruka turned to yell at him for another bloodied and stained mission report, Kakashi couldn’t help but bask in his attention. Which only provoked more yelling out of the teacher when he noticed that Kakashi was smiling.

Suddenly, Kakashi was so afraid of stumbling that it had taken him but a year to muster up enough courage, something he didn’t think he still possessed, to ask him out. There was loyalty in him, yes, but to think that Kakashi would be confronted with a decision a long shot off from any missions or duties, with a matter less of a shinobi and more a matter of the heart?

It did not help that Iruka appeared to be the most open and, simultaneously, guarded person in Konoha. Kakashi couldn’t get a read on him. There he was, laughing alongside Kakashi at Ichiraku’s while they were swapping stories about the little demons they called their children, but whenever Kakashi tried to, well, not pry exactly, but to learn more about what moved the teacher, Iruka would still smile at him but, almost invisible to the naked eye, draw in on himself and give answers that were really none.

At first Kakashi thought that this behavior wasn’t exactly unusual for shinobi, but his curiosity grew the more time they spent together; when Kakashi would share a bit about the ninken, or how Sakumo had loved to embarrass him as a kid, or his short but distinctive time at the academy, Iruka would drink those stories up with laughter and counter with his own retellings. A lot of his stories included Naruto, and Kakashi was surprised to find out that Iruka hadn’t wanted him in his class in the beginning. Kakashi felt a new layer being added onto his affection. However, some of them were just as silly as Kakashi’s stories, for example the image of Iruka’s father and his very peculiar mustache, and his mother, mortified, at finding her son having taken a permanent marker to his face in a reenactment of it.

Kakashi learned that playfully pushing the sensei would often get him a delicious blush, but that really _pushing_ would have Kakashi shut off within the blink of an eye.

It wasn’t until Naruto wearily eyeing him one day and the ensuing conversation that Kakashi made sense of Iruka’s behavior.

“Kakashi-sensei.” Kakashi had noticed that Naruto was looking at him, but decided not to call him out until the boy was ready to speak up. When he took his eyes from the novel in his hands, Naruto quickly averted his eyes and didn’t look up from where he was crouching down with a stick in his hand, scratching at the dried ground.

“Hm?”

Naruto frowned, and scratched harder. Kakashi briefly wondered whether he also had been that easy to read as a kid. Maybe that’s why he’d started wearing the mask.

“Say, what is your deal with Iruka-sensei?”

Kakashi blinked, dog-eared the page, and considered his student.

“My deal? You make it sound like I’m a…” _Criminal_ , he had wanted to say but swallowed the sentence. Naruto didn’t seem to notice. “What’s going on in that head of yours?”

“You’re friends, right?” Naruto asked, not meeting his eyes. Kakashi couldn’t tell if Naruto was displeased by that. He took his comment about kid’s being easy to read back. Perhaps Naruto was jealous that his favorite teacher was spending time with someone else?

Kakashi regarded Naruto and mulled over his words. “Yes, we are friends, Naruto. And I’m glad he is my friend, because Iruka-sensei is a good person.”

At that Naruto perked up and dropped his stick, pointing a finger at Kakashi. “Yes, he is, Iruka-sensei is the best!”

Kakashi bit down on a laugh and let his eyes close as he smiled. Naruto blew out his cheeks and stood up to his whole, tiny height. “You know Iruka-sensei likes you?”

Kakashi had no single clue where this was going. “I like him too.”

“No, Kakashi-sensei. He _likes_ you.” Naruto was jumping from one foot to another now, his energy daring to vibrate right out of him. “He likes you a lot.”

Oh. Kakashi’s face grew hot. _Oh_.

“And I like both of you, even if you’re weird sometimes, but Iruka-sensei is like, my dad, not my real one because he died, but, you know…” Naruto was talking fast, breathing fast, Kakashi already saw him hyperventilating so, although his ears were _burning_ and he wanted the ground to swallow him whole, Jesus, he put a hand to Naruto’s shoulders and nodded.

“It’s okay, I, uh, I…” _Don’t make me say this out loud to a twelve-year-old, please._ “I like him a lot, too.”

But it was the right thing to say because Naruto beamed with the full force of the sun and threw up his hands. “That’s great!” he yelled right into Kakashi’s face, and Kakashi’s ears rung. As vigorously as he had reacted, his arms came down to rest at his sides again. “But, Kakashi-sensei… you know how you get all quiet sometimes and don’t talk to us, not even to Sakura-chan?”

Kakashi winced. “Yes, Naruto,” he nodded and remembered that conversation very vividly. The Hokage had sent him out on an S-Rank which went awry and had him taken hostage by missing-nin for a week. The physical recovery was quick and mostly painless thanks to medication, but the psychological one had provoked some old feelings and images to resurface. “But remember how I told you that it’s – “

“ – not our fault, I know, I know,” Naruto was yelling again, and Kakashi almost begged him to tone the volume down just a little, when Naruto worried his lip between his teeth. “’S just… Iruka-sensei was hurt,” he paused and Kakashi sensed that Naruto wasn’t done yet, so he waited. “He was hurt very badly.” He got quieter with every word. “And now he is very silent too, sometimes. And it’s harder for him to make friends, you know?”

Kakashi nodded, but he didn’t really know. He didn’t know what Naruto was talking about exactly, what had happened that had gotten Iruka hurt. His first instinct was to ask himself, _where was I when this happened_ , but between all the missions and hospital stays before he picked up his genin team it was a wonder that he remembered anything from that time at all. He thought that Iruka didn’t seem like someone who had a hard time making friends, at all, but then Kakashi generally met Iruka alone.

“And I worry about him. But you’ll look out for him, too? I know that he looks out for you.” Naruto jolted him out of his thoughts, and he brought a hand up to the back of his head to scratch at it.

“Maa, Naruto, are you sure you should be sharing this with me?”

Naruto gave him a look before going back to drawing shapes into the dirt. Kakashi realized he was sketching a crude version of Team 7. “I know you have your special eye, Kakashi-sensei, but sometimes you can be really blind.”

Kakashi didn’t have an answer to that.

Later in the day, he met Iruka outside the academy for lunch. He hadn’t realized how absorbed he was in his thoughts until they were at Iruka’s doorstep, and the teacher turned around to ask him inside.

Kakashi diligently placed his sandals next to Iruka’s in the genkan before venturing to the kitchen, where Iruka had disappeared. There were take-out containers on the counter and he blinked at them, stupefied. Right, they had wanted to get lunch but he guessed Iruka had changed his mind.

“Alright, spill it.”

His head shot up. Iruka was sitting at the table, resting his chin in the palm of his hand, elbow propped on the wood. He’d already let down his hair. Kakashi cherished the sight; he knew Iruka got headaches if he kept it up too long.

Iruka’s focus was on Kakashi and although his posture feigned ease, his gaze was intense. Kakashi felt like a deer in the headlights and he kind of knew why. He remained standing on the threshold. “Sensei?”

Without taking his eyes off Kakashi, he used his foot to push the chair opposite of him out. An invitation. Or maybe an order.

“You haven’t said one word on the way home. You didn’t ask me about my day at the academy which, by the way, is fine, but untypical for you. And you didn’t even notice that we didn’t stop anywhere for food. So, I figure something’s up.”

Kakashi’s throat went dry. Not only at the implication that Iruka had been observing him, but that he had been so careless in covering up his inner turmoil that it had taken the teacher less than one look at him to tell. His eyes moved from Iruka to the empty chair and back to Iruka, and he shifted on his feet.

“Did something happen with the kids today? Or were you called into the Hokage’s office?” He could tell that Iruka was getting more nervous the longer it took him to reply. Kakashi watched Iruka’s face soften as he said, “You don’t have to talk about it obviously, I just – “

“No, no,” Kakashi interrupted him quickly. He took a big breath and pulled himself together mentally before walking over to the table and sitting down. Iruka rearranged his position so he was facing him, and Kakashi was overcome with an affection so deep yet so clear; nothing could move him away from Iruka. The tree outside the kitchen window, a rare sight in the inner district of Konoha, let its branches dance as a gust of wind carried through the leaves. “I had a conversation with Naruto today.”

Iruka relaxed a little at that. “Is he alright? I saw him two days ago when he came here and talked to me about…” Iruka’s eyes widened, and he froze in a display of panic.

Alarmed, Kakashi leaned forward. “Iruka?”

Iruka, who was staring off to the right corner of the table, slowly moved his attention back to Kakashi. Color creeped up his neck and settled on his cheeks. “Oh no,” he breathed. “What did he tell you?”

“Uh,” Kakashi started but was too busy taking in the poor teacher before him. He stumbled. “Uhm, he told me – “ And he stumbled. He had been reading trashy romance novels for _years_ only to falter like a damn schoolgirl now. “He told me about an accident, or an injury of yours.” It wasn’t a lie per se but there was no way he could get the whole truth out with his heart hammering in his chest like that. “I didn’t really understand but I guess he thought it was important for me to know?”

Some of the tension left Iruka’s face; his eyes went back to the right corner of the table and he leaned back on his chair. “Oh.” He almost sounded disappointed. “He probably means his graduation.”

Something ugly bubbled up his throat. Kakashi was angry although he didn’t know what had happened. Or maybe he was angry because he didn’t know, hadn’t been there. “Obviously you don’t have to share, sensei, he shouldn’t have shared it with me – “

“No, it’s alright,” Iruka replied, but it didn’t look like it was alright. “I probably wouldn’t have told you otherwise. He’s smart.” His knuckles went white from where he was pressing his hands onto the tabletop. “A teacher at the Academy used Naruto to get to the scroll of seals. He intended to kill Naruto and leave the village with the scroll. I found Naruto first.”

Kakashi froze.

Iruka’s eyes met his briefly, but he looked away again as if he couldn’t stand that he was talking about this but needed to get it out all the same. “It’s the scar on my back. I know you saw it on our escort mission during spring.” It was true, Kakashi had seen it when Iruka had undressed with his back to him. It was impossible not to see it. The scar tissue ate at the skin of Iruka’s back, spreading out like an exploding star. “A fuma-shuriken. It almost severed my spinal cord.”

Even through his sharp intake of breath, Kakashi noticed the click of pieces falling into place at the back of his mind. He couldn’t move, didn’t want to make any noise; Kakashi was processing Iruka’s words. He was desperate to ask _who_ , to get a name or a description so he could… he didn’t know exactly what he would do, but this anger had to go somewhere. Yet, Iruka’s expression was telling him he shouldn’t interrupt now.

“It was someone I considered a friend.” Iruka’s mouth was a grim line, his body a taught as a bow as if he was still waiting for the blow. Kakashi held his breath until Iruka let out one of his own, stuttering. He was staring out of kitchen window that was home to some wild and breathing things, like the overflowing basil plant growing on the windowsill in a colorful. Even though Iruka didn’t use fresh spices often as he didn’t enjoy cooking much, the plants hadn’t been neglected.

Kakashi watched Iruka bring a hand up to his carefully averted face and could tell from the movement that Iruka tried to cover how he was wiping at his face, not wanting Kakashi to know he was crying. Some of his anger faded at the sight.

After a moment that only the refrigerator’s buzzing filled, Iruka turned to him. “Don’t look like that, Kakashi. He’s been imprisoned. Naruto is fine.”

_But are you?_ he almost asked.

What came out instead was this: “That’s why you keep your walls up.” Neither was it a question, nor an accusation. Kakashi’s mouth had moved on its own, let the words tumble straight out of the place behind his ribcage. Iruka looked taken aback and went back to not meeting his eyes.

“What… do you mean?”

Kakashi knew he had reached a point of no return. Might as well go all in now. The emotions rushing through him when Iruka had shared about the accident was proof enough. He wanted to be _there_ for Iruka, if he’d allow.

“I noticed that you kept me at an arm’s length. Which was never an issue for me, because…” A lot of people had done it with Kakashi. Because he was used to it. “It’s not unusual for shinobi. But sometimes you seem as if you would like to,” he swallowed, “ah, let someone in, but that you hold yourself back on purpose. And then Naruto said it was different. Before the accident.”

Iruka was blushing now, but it didn’t feel like a victory this time. “I… suppose you could say so.” His voice was almost a whisper. The scar across his nose stood out against his reddened cheeks. “I thought I’d manage on my own, I guess. Worse things have happened. I didn’t – ” a soft inhale, “I didn’t think that anyone would mind, or notice that I was more… ” Iruka swallowed. “Distant, you say? But I was stupid to think so. It’s been taking a toll on Naruto and that’s something that’s unforgivable to me. I started seeing a counsellor at the hospital two weeks ago. And now you’re telling me…” His eyes were filling up again, but he didn’t hide this time.

“Iruka.” Kakashi’s throat was raw from emotion when he said his name.

“You’ve been nothing but kind to me, Kakashi. I don’t know where Naruto would be if it weren’t for you as his sensei. I don’t think I could stand losing you, too.”

Kakashi didn’t think, just released what he had been holding back. “Can I touch you?”

Iruka regarded him through a sheen of unshed tears. He nodded.

Kakashi tried to move slowly, but the second he had his permission he was already in front of the teacher and had his arms around him.

“Do you know how important you are to Naruto? Do you know how important you are to _me_?” It certainly wasn’t the first time that they hugged, but the first time that Iruka went rigid, not at the touch but at Kakashi’s words. Kakashi went stumbling head over heels again. “I was beginning to think that maybe I was overextending my welcome, that you’d gotten sick of me, but there’s no getting rid of me now.”

Gradually, Iruka’s raised his arms and let his hands hover over Kakashi’s back, before his fingers dug into the fabric of his vest. Kakashi only noticed that Iruka was crying by the fine tremors that shook his shoulders every now and then. They stood there for what felt like hours.

“I got snot all over your vest,” Iruka spoke right into mentioned piece of clothing, his head tucked, and face pressed into Kakashi’s chest.

“Good.” His fingers ran through the fine hairs at the back of Iruka’s neck.

Iruka snorted, and then laughed against the fabric, now wet. Kakashi decided that Iruka’s laugh was the best sound he’d ever heard.

Like two colors that had started blending in together, it was difficult for them to separate from their embrace, the new knowledge of each other shaping the space between them. But eventually, Iruka stepped back and rubbed his sleeve over his face and his puffy eyes, only lowering it to tuck strands of his hair behind his ears. He worried on his lower lip. “Kakashi, you can tell me if I’m reading this wrong but – “

“Get dinner with me.”

“Wh- what?”

Kakashi was smiling as he kept going. “Get dinner with me.”

“I’m a mess,” Iruka deadpanned.

“Not today, but maybe the weekend. Or next week. Next month. Whenever you’re free.”

They were nearly the same height, so Kakashi could take in Iruka’s expression wholly, how his eyes slightly widened when he recognized the intent behind the invitation, how he seemed just about ready to cry again. “As a date?”

Kakashi shrugged a little. “Told you, you’re stuck with me. I’m staying, if you let me.”

“Yes,” Iruka rasped. “I’ll have you.” And he nodded, the corners of his mouth turning upwards. “I’ll have you, if you let me.”

**Author's Note:**

> while Kakashi is often depicted as being very guarded and not letting partners in, i like the idea that after all that has happened to him, Iruka is afraid of losing even more than he already has. he keeps to himself as a result. but fret no more! because i live to give these characters a family as they deserve. also, in this household we don't mention the name of that white-haired goblin who threw the shuriken. 
> 
> i hope you are well, and thank you so much for reading :-)


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